To the Bookmobile! The Library on Wheels of Yesteryear

Long before Amazon was bringing books to your doorstep, there was the Bookmobile! A travelling library often used to provide books to villages and city suburbs that had no library buildings, the bookmobile went from a simple horse-drawn cart in the 19th century to large customised vehicles that became part of American culture and reached their height of popularity in the mid-twentieth century. Let’s take a little trip down memory lane with this forgotten four-wheeler…

So what happened to the beloved Bookmobiles?

While there are still a few libraries around that have managed to find a budget for a modern-day bookmobile, sadly, most of the oldies have ended up rotting away in a junkyards or eventually disappeared altogether.

Paul Buttars, former manager of the Utah State Library Bookmobile Program, in one of the “older” bookmobiles. Taken in Chesterfield, UT circa 1975 / via USL

No longer in service, this old TRL bookmobile residing on private property just south of Amanda Park, Washington. Photo taken 19 Dec 2011. (Library Service to this area of rural Washington is now provided by the Amanda Park branch of Timberland Regional Library)/ via Washington State library

The Henderson County Bookmobile bides it’s time before making its last trip to the bone yard. Rest in Peace, or pieces? / via Davis Bell

A bookmobile that has been sitting in the same spot for at least 15 years at 25 West Tamar Road, Trevallyn, Tasmania via May Clarkson

There was one sighting however, of an old bookmobile at the 2007 Burning Man Festival…